The Good: Extremely creepy atmosphere, well crafted storyline, excellent use of RPG elements, PLASMIDS, beautiful graphi
It's the 1960s, and you are onboard a jetliner when something goes horribly wrong and you are all of a sudden swimming for your life from the wreakage. You come across a strange structure that brings you into the world of Rapture, an underwater city crafted by James Ryan, a mysterious scientist. This is the begining of Bioshock, and from there on out, it just keeps getting better.
While enjoying your stay in the charmingly deteriorating city of Rapture, you must combat enemies known as Splicers, who use these genetic enhancement formulas known as plasmids to enhance their abilities, and turn them into deformed monsters. You too can use these plasmids, and they are part of what makes Bioshock so unique. To use plasmids, you need EVE, which is basically Magic. You can find EVE boosters all around Rapture, simply by just looking for them. The plasmid types include catching things of fire, freezing them, mind controlling Big Daddys and throwing killer bees at enemies. Fun stuff to be sure. One thing that stands out about Bioshock is the strong RPG like elements in the game. You can upgrade your character by obtaining ADAM, which you gather from Little Sisters. Little Sisters are guarded by the game's signature baddy, the Big Daddy. To obtain ADAM, you must kill the Big Daddy and either harvest or save the little sister. Harvesting will kill the little sister, and give you a bunch of ADAM right away. Saving them will transform them back into the innocent little girls they once were, and gives you much less ADAM right away, but you get a huge amount of bonus ADAM after saving a certain number of Little Sisters. You are also able to upgrade your weapons and make new types of ammo for them. You only have a simple set of weapons, but the customization features make them something special and especially deadly. The moral desisions and customizaton of Bioshock is very much like a RPG, but there is so much more that makes this game so good and so unique.
There is suprisingly a ton of stratagy and variety of ways to play the game. You are able to hack almost any electronic device in the game, and boy does that have it's benefits. If you hack a turret, it will attack all enemies around you. Hack a security camera, and the security bots will fight on your side whenever an enemy enters that room. Hack a vending machine to get lower prices on items and hack a safe to unlock it's contents. Hacking is very useful and adds a few different ways to handle situations. You can choose to bull rush a group of enemies with your electric shotgun and plasmids, or you can hack a turret and mind control a Big Daddy and have them take out the opposition. It's all up to you. You choose how to upgrade your weapons, how to customize your character, whether to be good or evil and how to fight in sertain situations. This is definately a game that you can replay and have a totally different resault.
There is virtually nothing negative to say about Bioshock, unlike what Jeff mentioned in his review, but there were a few extremely minor problems that honestly don't cause any problems. First, the game has no multiplayer modes whatsoever. Granted, the single player game is fantastic, long (clocking it at around 20 hours, which is really good for an FPS), and outstanding in every way, but some kind of multiplayer would have been nice. There are some moments when the game slows down for a couple of seconds, but it honestly doesn't do it very often and doesn't mess up the gameplay in any way.
The visuals in Bioshock are up there with Gears of War as one of the best looking 360 titles. It has a very stylized look, which is definately a good thing and features the best looking water effects ever seen in a game. The musical score is outstanding and perfectly complements the game's creepy atmostphere. The voice acting is also excellent. Overall, if you have an Xbox 360 and enjoy creepy first person shooters, creepy games, FPS games in general or games in general, you need to play Bioshock. I can't say this is a shoe in for Game of the Year, because we still have to play a ton of big name titles this year, but this game definately is the frontrunner and has to at least earn a nomination in several catagories. This is a must play, and a must buy on every front and is definately one of the best games of 2007 and on the Xbox 360. Pick up Bioshock, you know you want to...
Gameplay: Part shooter, part RPG, part stratagy, Bioshock is simply one of the most unique and best FPS experiences on the market.
Graphics: Fantastically creepy and stylized, Bioshock as a unique and excellent look to it and features amazing water effects.
Sound: Superb voice acting and delightfully creepy soundtrack give this game an incredible feel.
Value: This is a super rare case where shelling out $60 for a single player only game is definately worth it because of the incredable replay value. Get the Collector's Editon if you can find it.